No Apologies, No Mercy! Tigress Island Brings Pulp Back to Comics
18SHARESPatrick Kindlon and EPHK are cooking up something wild with Tigress Island, a five-issue series launching from Image Comics in March 2026 that’s basically everything you loved about grimy exploitation flicks but filtered through a modern comic book lens. If you’ve been following Kindlon’s work on Gehenna or Stringer, you already know he’s got a knack for stories that don’t pull punches, and pairing him with EPHK—whose art on Harpy proved he can deliver raw, visceral visuals—feels like the perfect storm of creative chaos.
The premise hits like a punch to the gut in the best way possible. A group of washed-up actresses who never caught their big break get kidnapped and dumped on a remote island prison run by a ruthless warden who rules her jungle kingdom with an iron fist wrapped in silk. These aren’t superheroines or trained fighters—they’re desperate survivors who’ve already been beaten down by Hollywood’s rejection machine, and now they’re facing something even more brutal. Their only path to freedom means banding together despite their differences, breaking their literal and metaphorical chains, and navigating a gauntlet of betrayals because trust is a luxury nobody can afford when survival is on the line. It’s exploitation pulp filtered through a lens that actually cares about these characters as people, not just bodies in peril.
Kindlon’s pitch for the series makes it clear this isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is—pure, unapologetic entertainment that knows exactly what it wants to deliver. He describes it as being for readers who feel like their weekly comics haul has gotten too safe, too predictable, too sanitized. Tigress Island promises high craft married to lowbrow thrills, the kind of story that embraces being fun without apologizing for it. EPHK’s comments about capturing the spirit of straight-to-video classics from the eighties and nineties while somehow transcending those limitations suggests they’re threading a difficult needle here—honoring the grindhouse aesthetic that inspired them without falling into the lazy tropes that made a lot of those films feel cheap or exploitative in all the wrong ways.
The first issue drops on March 11, 2026, and Image is going all-in on cover options. You’ve got Cover A and Cover B both by EPHK, which makes sense since you want to showcase the artist’s style front and center. Cover C comes from Luana Vecchio and carries an NSFW warning, which tells you pretty clearly that this series isn’t worried about keeping things PG-13. Cover D is handled by Kaladen, giving readers a nice variety of artistic interpretations to choose from depending on their taste. The series will be available at comic shops and across digital platforms including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play, so there’s no excuse for missing it if the premise sounds like your kind of madness.
What’s interesting about Tigress Island arriving in 2026 is the timing. We’re in an era where comics seem split between massive superhero events and introspective literary works, with less room for the kind of pulpy, id-driven adventure stories that used to fill spinner racks. Kindlon and EPHK are betting there’s still an audience hungry for comics that prioritize visceral thrills and don’t spend three issues on internal monologues about moral ambiguity. That’s not to say Tigress Island will be shallow—the best exploitation stories always had something simmering beneath the surface—but it’s promising entertainment first and philosophical meditation second. The fact that it’s a contained five-issue miniseries rather than an ongoing also works in its favor, suggesting a focused story with a clear beginning, middle, and end rather than a concept stretched thin to maximize profit.
The creative team’s previous work gives us clues about what to expect. Kindlon has consistently delivered stories that balance dark humor with genuine stakes, characters who feel lived-in even when the situations get absurd, and dialogue that crackles with personality. EPHK’s art style leans into expressive linework and isn’t afraid to get messy when the story demands it—this isn’t going to be a series where everyone looks pristine panel after panel. Together, they’re promising something that evokes the energy of classic women-in-prison films, jungle adventure serials, and survival thrillers while being filtered through sensibilities that understand what worked about those old exploitation flicks and what desperately needed updating.
If you’re the kind of reader who misses when comics felt dangerous, when picking up an issue meant you genuinely didn’t know where the story might go or what boundaries it might push, Tigress Island is making a direct play for your attention. It’s not trying to be respectable or win literary awards—it’s trying to be the comic equivalent of discovering a wild VHS tape at a sketchy video store at 2 AM and knowing you’re about to watch something memorable, for better or worse. Sometimes that’s exactly what you need from your entertainment, and Kindlon and EPHK seem committed to delivering that rush without compromise. Mark March 11, 2026 on your calendar if you want to see what happens when Hollywood’s forgotten get their shot at revenge in the worst possible place imaginable.